


Cat and Mouse

by orphan_account



Series: Terrible and True [12]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 02:58:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2565794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not ideal, but it's the name of the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cat and Mouse

Friday, December 24, 1999

Despite Chet’s objections to carrying out a hit over the holidays, Numbers realizes as he and Wrench slip into Kobrick’s apartment that there really couldn’t be a _better_ time to kill somebody like him, somebody society won’t miss. The guy has no wife, no kids, and no social circle besides his group of fellow gamblers-slash-accomplices. There’s not even a damn dog in the apartment. It’s only Kobrick, fast asleep and snoring on his couch in front of the TV, surrounded by empty cans of lager. It might be sad if the whole situation wasn’t so convenient for the hitmen.

But still, what a way to live.

 _“Pathetic,”_ Wrench comments, nodding towards the sight in front of him.

_“Wake him up.”_

Wrench pulls out his pistol instead, motioning it towards Kobrick. _“ **You** wake him up.”_

The infomercial on the TV drowns out Numbers’ whispered, “Are you kidding me?” When Wrench, now impatient, waves his pistol at the guy a second time, Numbers snatches up one of the beer cans and lobs it at Kobrick’s head. It’s not exactly what Wrench had in mind but neither man can argue with the results as Kobrick snorts, his tired eyes blearily opening.

At first, Kobrick doesn’t seem to register the sight in front of him, so his chubby hands rub at his eyes and he takes a second look, this time realizing that this probably won’t end well. Off the first inclination that he’s about to attempt getting up, Wrench jams the suppressor of his gun against Kobrick’s temple. Even a stupid guy like Kobrick knows not to move when the threat of something flying through your skull at over a thousand feet per second is on the table.

“Don’t think about screaming. You don’t wanna disturb your nice neighbors, do you?”

Kobrick squeezes his eyes shut again, the prayer that he was dreaming or imaging these men miles away as the cold metal presses into his head. “No. No, no, no.”

“You know who we are?”

Dizzy from shock, sleep, and alcohol, Kobrick shakes his head.

“We’re from Fargo.”

“Oh, shit.”

Numbers chuckles, turns the TV off and draws his own gun from his jacket. “Let’s make this fast. It’s cold and it’s almost Christmas and we’ve all got places we’d rather be.” Numbers looks around the living room, at the clothing and crusty takeout containers strewn everywhere. “Well, at least _we_ do, anyway,” he adds, gesturing to Wrench. “So. We understand you came into some money recently. Where is it?”

Wrench allows Kobrick a few seconds to reply before he flicks off the safety. He hopes the guy says something soon; he’d prefer not to shoot him at such a close range and get blood and tissue all over his clothes and hands and face. But he’s done a lot of things for Fargo he’d rather not, just to get the jobs over with.

“Well?”

Kobrick, clamping his eyes shut, blindly juts one of his pork loin arms, his hand shaking at the end as it points towards his bedroom. Wrench’s eyes follow the line, and he nods to Numbers before disappearing down the hall.

“The four of you pulled quite a little heist,” Numbers says once Wrench is out of sight and making a very unnecessary amount of noise as he, Numbers assumes, tears the room apart. “So why’re you all alone on Christmas, Eugene? Couldn’t rent a lady to keep you company for the night, with all that cash?”

Kobrick blinks stupidly up at Numbers. “How do… How did you find out about the money?”

Numbers laughs again, scratching his bearded chin with his unarmed hand. “You didn’t exactly make it difficult. You or your buddies.”

“Are they—”

“Dead?” Numbers helpfully supplies. “Nah.” He idly thumbs over a few VHS tapes on Kobrick’s TV stand, eventually landing on ‘ _Scarface_ ’ and hmphing, tapping it. “Not yet, anyway.”

Numbers’ partner returns, clomping back into the room and carrying a grey bag, his face set into what Numbers can only describe as a “triumphant scowl,” if there even is such a thing. He figures that Wrench would be the only person alive who could contort his face into such an expression, in any case.

Wrench tosses the backpack onto the coffee table, scattering the remainder of the beer cans. _“In the back of his closet.”_

Numbers snorts. _“Hidden behind a box of porn or something?”_

Wrench raises an eyebrow, the faintest trace of a grin shining through his grim expression. _“Good guess.”_

Numbers crouches and unzips the bag, whistling at the pile of money inside. It’s more cash than he’s seen in one place in a while—not the most, but a respectable stash, regardless. “Damn, Eugene, that’s quite a payout. What was your cut, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Kobrick doesn’t answer at first, just looks at the money almost longingly. “Forty thousand,” he eventually mumbles gruffly, shame tingeing his voice.

 _“Forty thousand dollars!”_ Numbers signs to Wrench, speaking the words in conjunction with his gestures.

Wrench pretends to be impressed, eyes going wide as he exhales reverently. He taps the barrel of the gun against his hand in a menacing take on a golf clap.

“That all still here, Eugene? Or did you piss some of it away already?”

Kobrick nods, face red and eyes examining the floor as his fat fingers impotently wring in his lap. “About four grand.”

“Gambling?” Off Kobrick’s nod, Numbers tut-tuts. Maybe it’s regret Numbers sees on the guy’s face, but whether it’s mostly over his bad investments or getting caught lies beyond him. “Eugene, you should know better! That’s how Lovera got himself into his whole situation. Ah, well,” Numbers sighs, zipping up the bag, “history repeats itself, I guess.” As if on cue to repeat his own sordid history, he aims his gun at Kobrick’s head, prompting more grimacing and trembling from the man on the sofa.

But the bang and expected blackness doesn’t follow, and after several seconds Kobrick dares to open one eye and then the other, to find that Numbers has lowered his pistol.

Numbers grins jovially and raises his eyebrows. “Actually, there’s one more thing you can help us out with, Eugene.” He tosses the bag back to Wrench, who slings it over his shoulder. “Where’s Carver play into this? We know your buddy Dubois posed as him. But how’d you guys _know_ about Carver? That’s what doesn’t add up.”

“Sid,” Kobrick blurts out.

Numbers’ eyebrows rise again. A five-star piece of shit, this guy, ratting out his buddies and making sure they get their just desserts, all because he’s about to get snuffed out. It’s a small bit of solace to Numbers, knowing he wouldn’t and probably even _couldn’t_ dream of doing the same to Wrench, despite barely knowing him from Adam.

“It was his idea. Don’t know nothin’ else about any of it—”

_“Waste him.”_

Wrench and Numbers rush out of the apartment a split-second after the bullet flies clean through Kobrick’s skull, smattering the wall behind him in a grotesque Rorschach-esque pattern.

~~~~

_“Why’d you take that?”_

_“He’s not gonna miss it.”_

_“That’s not the point.”_

_“Then what is?”_

Wrench rolls his eyes, huffs out a sigh that clings to the windshield. _“You know we’re not supposed to take anything we’re not sent into a job to get. Don’t be careless.”_

 _“I doubt the missing movie is what’s gonna crack the case for the cops when they start looking into this,”_ Numbers argues. He shoves the tape into the glove box. There’s no point in asking Wrench to watch ‘ _Scarface_ ’ with him if his partner’s going to guilt him the entire time about how Numbers shouldn’t even have the movie in the first place.

~~~~

Nailing Petroske is proving to be just as difficult as Kobrick’s hit was easy.

They’re inside the house, at least—considerably nicer digs than the shitty apartment they just left—but Wrench had stepped onto a particularly creaky floorboard as he crept up the hallway, and the great, groaning squeak of the wood might as well have been a fucking siren. From one of the back rooms Numbers heard a muffled scramble followed by the distinctive _click_ of a gun’s safety switch, and all hopes of a clean hit were swept off the table.

 _“He’s knows we’re here. He’s moving,”_ Number signals, his ears perked and desperate to unravel where, exactly, Petroske’s footsteps are coming from.

Wrench nods, steadily holding his pistol in front of him and knowing that at least Petroske won’t call the police over a break-in. If Wrench still believed in God he would consider this a small miracle; criminals tend to prefer to keep the law out of these sorts of matters, even when the situations clearly aren’t in their favor. Things aren’t exactly in _their_ favor, either, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment.

From what Numbers can gather as he moves through the barely-lit area, the downstairs is set up almost like a giant circle, with all rooms connected to each other and the hallway cutting through the middle. It certainly isn’t an ideal layout, not for this, and he exhales sharply through his nose at the thought of going round and round the house with Wrench all night, Petroske rooms ahead or behind, either following or outpacing them, and neither party ever actually meeting. Cat and mouse is the name of the game on a lot of jobs, but this imagined scenario takes it to a whole other level of absurdity.

Wrench steps ahead of Numbers, holding his breath and peeking out into the next room while Numbers hangs back, ensuring Petroske doesn’t have the opportunity to sneak up on them from the previous area. It carries on like this for a few rooms, Wrench up front and Numbers trailing, both men’s hearts skipping a beat with each corner turned, every shadow a potential threat.

It’s beyond lucky that Numbers turns around when he does, truly by the grace of God or some other benevolent entity, never mind that most compassionate otherworldly beings generally don’t pave the way for murder. But Numbers’ head cranes back towards his partner just in time to see Petroske, tall and bearded, emerge from the archway leading to the hall, pistol raised and approaching Wrench from behind. He clearly doesn’t know Numbers is barely two yards away from him, or even that there’s a second intruder lurking through his house. His sights are set on Wrench and Wrench alone, and he’s about to go in for the kill.

Numbers doesn’t have to think about it, doesn’t waste so much as a fraction of a nanosecond mourning whatever information's about to slip away or the money they’ll never recover for Fargo; he fires a shot into the back of Petroske’s head.

Wrench wheels around, fearing the worst after feeling hot blood and brain bits pepper the back of his exposed neck. But he finds that Numbers is fine, bouncing on his heels across the room and looking as smug as humanly possible. Wrench exhales, slowly and audibly, then glances to the body at his feet with annoyance. _“So much for finding the cash.”_

Numbers tucks his gun away, his pleased grin fading as he shakes his head. _“You’ve got a hell of a funny way of saying ‘thank you.’”_

~~~~

Their sedan is the only car on the road back to the cabin. The puttering engine cuts through the muffled midnight hush, tainting the serenity that has fallen over the town as the descending snowflakes grow thicker, threatening to cover Duluth in yet another fresh layer of white by morning.

A sturdy hand on Numbers’ shoulder prevents him from leaving the car after they get back to the cottage. At the touch he expects another scolding, another reminder that Fargo won’t be thrilled that potentially valuable information died with Petroske or yet another stern comment about how he really, _really_ shouldn’t have taken that fucking movie. What he’s not expecting is softness in Wrench’s eyes and his hand moving towards his chin, then away from it again.

_“Thank you.”_

There’s something disarming about the way Wrench earnestly looks down at him, how his grateful expression seems to smooth out all his hard edges despite the dried blood flecked on the side of his throat. Numbers shrugs and a tender, lopsided grin slides across his lips. _“What are partners for?”_


End file.
